Polyphony Digital

The Gran Turismo brand once again made a strong showing last weekend at the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans.  Trackside banners could be seen all around Circuit de La Sarthe – most notably at the chicanes down the  Mulsanne straight.  Sony also continued their strong support of the Pescarolo Sport racing team’s Peugeot 908 LMP car, in the quickly-becoming-classic light blue/green/white livery that you probably remember from GT4.  Polyphony Digital’s Citroen GT also made the rounds this year, (supposedly) doing a honorary lap around the circuit (still waiting on pictures of that) and appearing in a local driver’s parade.

Some people were quick to lament that no “hard facts” regarding Gran Turismo 5 were released at last week’s E3 show, but now that we’ve had some time to carefully pick through the HD trailer, you can see we’ve actually learned quite a bit.  Much like we did with Gran Turismo PSP: What You Need to Know, let’s put the pieces of the puzzle together and find out exactly what Kazunori Yamauchi and Polyphony Digital told us…

We knew it wouldn’t be long before more detailed information begins trickling out of Los Angeles – and sure enough – the first interview with Kazunori Yamauchi from E3 does just that!  He sat down with automotive news site Edmunds.com shortly after Sony’s E3 press conference and shared a few interesting things about GT Mobile and Gran Turismo 5.  Here’s a quick summary of what we learn:

Just when we thought this roller coaster ride was about to come to an end, we find there’s one more scary drop: Sony is reportedly telling everyone interviewing Kazunori Yamauchi “to not mention Gran Turismo 5“.  So…what does this mean?  Obviously, it’s not good – presuming that Gran Turismo 5 is announced at Sony’s big press conference tomorrow, why couldn’t he talk about it?  It may, ultimately, come down to Sony not wanting any GT5 announcements to dwarf GT Mobile and the new PSP Go hardware, in which case, we may be waiting several more months for news about the big game.

Citroen continues to promote their popular Citroen GT with increasingly high-profile events.  Just last weekend, Polyphony Digital’s real-life concept car helped kick off the infamous 24 Hours of the Nurburgring, and was on public display during the entire event.  This is the first of several appearances for the car across Europe – coming up next, it will take part in the driver’s parade of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and will attend the UK’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in July.

A new study by CIS Insurance and endorsed by the British government has uncovered a remarkable link – people interested in automotive video games and television shows like Gran Turismo and Top Gear are much more likely to break the speed limit.  It accuses such media of creating a “cachet of excitement and glamour around speeding”,  which presumably translates into death and destruction:

This is a little far-out, but it’s worth mentioning that Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has filed a new patent which demonstrates the PSP being used to remotely control a car.  As you can see, the RC vehicle has a camera attached to it, and the images are sent wirelessly back to the PSP.  According to the patent, ““a user may control the car […] so as to spy on their friends… then upload the stored video images to a website.”  Of course, this is an idea we’ve all probably had since we were little, and it’s been done many times before.

It’s not much, but the image above is our first look at the Gran Turismo Café at Twin Ring Motegi circuit which just opened a few weeks ago.  Thanks to Johnny for sending this in – he managed to dig it up from a random Japanese blog.  This picture helps the original sketch make more sense – now we just need a peek at the inside…  If you can take pictures of the café yourself, or if you can find some other shots, please send them our way!

There may be a hint of sensationalist link-baiting in VG247’s latest headline about Gran Turismo 5 – indeed, you can’t help but wonder why they didn’t mention these comments by SCEA Director of Hardware Marketing John Koller in their article last month.  Regardless, his additional comments reinforce the important notion that the GT series is coming to platforms other than the PS3:

Don’t bother checking your calendar – this isn’t another April fool’s joke!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_66KyeyfI4

In a revealing statement from last week’s Game Developer’s Conference, SCEA Director of Hardware Marketing John Koller mentioned that Gran Turismo 5 will be released across “all platforms” when it “makes the most sense”.  The comments came from a Q&A session and were just picked up by VG247:

You know exactly what features you want in Gran Turismo 5, but how many people out there actually agree with you?  It’s easy enough to peruse our Gran Turismo 5 forum, but even the most popular ideas get lost in the sea of discussions and opinions.  That’s why we’ve launched ideas.gtplanet.net, a new type of forum that lets you submit and vote on the features, cars, and tracks that you most want to see in future updates to the Gran Turismo series.  The ultimate goal is to efficiently utilize GTPlanet’s large audience to communicate what we, the fans, are most looking for from Polyphony Digital.  To keep things organized, the GTPlanet Ideas site is divided into three categories, or forums:

Since the Logitech Challenge cheaters were exposed, many of you have spread the word and contacted Sony/Logitech, expressing your anger with poorly-skilled drivers who were bending the rules to get ahead.  Now, we’ve got official word from Logitech on exactly what is (not) going to happen.   Chris Pate, Logitech’s Global Product Marketing Manager, stopped by the GTPlanet Forums:

If you’re a regular GTPlanet visitor, you already know about the Citroen GT.  It’s a monumental and unique achievement for a video game production company – the one and only Polyphony Digital.  However, you may be surprised to learn how many “real world” projects the Gran Turismo master minds are responsible for.  Tucked away on their Japanese website is a fascinating timeline of  collaborative projects, from the Nissan GT-R concept in 2001 to the Citroen GT today.

Aside from a few seconds of screen time in the rolling credits at the end of each game, few people aside from Kazunori Yamauchi get much credit for the countless hours of hard work that goes into each masterpiece of the Gran Turismo series. True, Polyphony Digital is a very secretive company – that’s just a fact of life in their industry – but there are hundreds of brilliant people getting their hands dirty (and sleeping on cots under their desks) who deserve more credit for what they do.  A single web page on Polyphony Digital’s corporate site offers the rare opportunity to place faces with names.  Thanks to the magic of online translation, let’s take a closer look at who they are.  GTPlanet wishes all of them well – keep up the great work, guys, we are looking forward to what you have in store for us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeXaKFWg9NE

We reported last December that Polyphony Digital’s Citroën GT may actually be headed for production.  That’s now confirmed thanks to Citroën Product Manager Vincent Besson‘s recent comments to Autocar.  Of course, no pricing or official specifications have been released, but we do know that it won’t contain the futuristic fuel-cells that we’ve played with in GT5 Prologue.  Instead, the French company will enlist V8 power from a GM or Ford motor, much like the one found in the concept that the car magazines have been playing with.  As was originally speculated, production will be limited to no more than 20 units, so you’d better get those orders in right away…  Thanks to Alex P. for the tip!

The Guinness World Records releases annual “Gamer’s Edition” books, which rate and document some of the more dramatic feats in the world of video games.  However, Guinness is branching out from the objective realm of records and numbers into the subjective world of opinion and “expert judging panels”.  One of the products of this ideological shift is a ranking of “The Top 50 Console Games of All Time“, and the results are raising a few eyebrows.

If you’ve spent any amount of time playing GT5 Prologue, you’ve surely noticed the “Tuned Nissan Skyline Coupe (V36)”.  It offers just enough modification to the standard car’s shape without going overboard, and the result is beautiful.  Of course, much like the GTbyCitroen, it was designed entirely by Polyphony Digital, and it was not until last year at SEMA that we learned this car will be brought to the “real world” by Japanese tuning shop Zele Performance. We’ve now got the full details – Zele is actually offering up the official body kit for Skyline Coupe/Infiniti G37 owners everywhere, but it doesn’t come cheap.  For the rest of us, though, it provides an interesting look at yet another car that made the jump from our TV screens.  Take a look at the photos below or visit Zele’s website for all the details.